We are interviewing Steven T. Collis, a critically acclaimed author of both fiction and nonfiction books and a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He's joining us to talk about his latest book Habits of a Peacemaker: 10 Habits to Change Our Potentially Toxic Conversations into Healthy Dialogues (https://amzn.to/47gPbAV). In his book you'll learn the practical skills that can help you build bridges, heal relationships, and engage in productive conversation about even the hardest topics. We have 2 free copies of his book available for our paid YouTube channel members and patreon.com/svic supporters. You can enter the raffle on discord here: https://bit.ly/3TxzgIV If you aren't a show supporter you can become a free patreon member at patreon.com/svic and comment on this thread to enter: https://bit.ly/3MKSaIz Follow us: Threads: www.threads.net/@svicpodcast Substrack: https://svic.substack.com/ Twitter: https://x.com/svicpodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/svicpodcast Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@svicpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/svicpodcast Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/svicpodcast Show hosts Joe (Eng VP) and Jordan (M&A Deal Lead) worked at various companies from Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Salesforce, Slack, Carta, Splunk, Wealthfront, Adobe, and more. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Setting the Stage 01:50 The Importance of Intellectual Humility 04:29 Reframing Conversations for Productive Discourse 07:36 The Role of Academia in Productive Conversations 11:16 Hunting for the Best Argument 14:21 The Dangers of Echo Chambers 17:20 Assuming the Best About Others 20:11 Achieving Inner Peace for Better Conversations 23:21 The Impact of Social Media on Learning 26:19 Using AI for Productive Discourse 29:25 The Puritan Mistake and First Amendment Misconceptions 32:12 The Miracle of American Discourse 35:27 Conclusion and Future Directions